In honor of the Halloween holiday, I thought I’d post this recent image I found on the way to a meeting in Poble Nou back in early September. It’s a dragon, monstrous, but not particularly terrifying, perhaps due to its color scheme and perhaps because it enjoys taking passengers. It is a creation of the artist derz, who has quite a few murals around the street art hotspots in Barcelona. I hope to be able to return to my normal postings come November, when I retake my finances, and purchase a bit more storage space from the WordPress warehouse.

As the title suggests, the majority of images from today’s post were from a quick trip to the Poblenou area, which resulted in the discovery of a number of large portraits. The largest of them, the sleeping woman requires the perfect combination of no parked cars, and a lack of traffic in order to capture just right, as its proportions make it difficult to take a picture without crossing the street, and shooting with your back against the warehouses facing her.

Last week, while making one of my occasional pilgrimages to the Poblenou neighbourhood, I stumbled upon an open gateway, beyond which I could see some murals. It’s a spot I pass by frequently, just off the northern exit of the Parc del Centre del Poblenou. I normally take this route as there are some walls of a partially abandoned building which get painted every now and again.

I’m normally not one just to enter an open gateway uninvited (one of the myriad reasons I’ll probably never move from taking pictures and archiving to creating urban art), but this time my curiousity got the best of me and I decided to wander in.

The name on the entrance said Can Ricart, but upon entering, I checked my phone location and noticed I was in a place called Hangar.org, which describes itself as “a centre for arts production and research, offering support to artists”. The website is here and the facebook is here. And here is some info about Can Ricart.

I didn’t have a chance to chat with anyone, as most of the occupants of the space seemed hard at work, but I did manage to take a stroll around the premises and get some interesting photos, including one of the huge pillar which is visible from the street outside the walls, and which I had photographed previously from afar.

As promised, in this post, I’ll show you the differences I found between the same spots, with a three month break in between.

The only difference is that the final photos in this post are taken from one of the Murs Lliures, which can be found on an entire city block, bordered by the streets Veneçuela, Agricultura, Josep Pla, and Pallars, a bit closer to the Selva de Mar metro station on the yellow line. Many of these pictures seem to follow the theme of climate change, and its effects on the arctic ecosystems, as the hashtags suggest. One of the principal artists involved in the effort is Pau Lopez, whose facebook page can be found here. And here is an interesting article on the initiative from our friends at Brooklyn Street Art.

Back in January, I took a short trip to the Poble Nou area, which is one of the hotter spots for street art in Barcelona, due to its past as one of the city’s industrial centres: wide streets, open lots and plenty of walls for the painting. The first few photos come from a corner just north of the Parc del Centre del Poblenou, a triangular park quite close to the Poblenou metro station of the yellow metro line. The park itself is quite modern, though you can still find one of the old smokestacks which once dotted this area of the city, which has been left as a reminder of the past.

The first pictures were taken just north of the park, at the intersection of the streets Espronceda and Marroc. This looks like the shell of a building, which has been left to the mercy of painters. Don’t forget to step back and see the Roman column that was painted on the side of the neighbouring building.

The next pictures were taken at another set of walls nearby, at the crossing of the streets Selva de Mar and Peru.

This is another shot from the Poblenou neighborhood. This wall was once the corner of a factory that was demolished into a large dusty parking lot and community garden. This angry looking cat slapped atop what are at least three or four layers of tags is one of two walls; a corner for a room that no longer exists. On the other side of this wall the corner is filled with the green and brown glass of broken beer bottles and fragments of brick and mortar. I like to imagine that maybe the “owner” of this property commissioned the cat to be painted in an attempt to keep out intruders, after the 30 cm concrete barriers proved inadequate protection. Seems the cat, so far has been effective in keeping the taggers away, but not so for “IRINA”.

Today I decided to check out the neighborhood of Poblenou (literally, New Village). Once known as the Catalan Manchester, Poblenou boasts a number of old factories surrounded by a small cluster of buildings nearby. These buildings make up a labyrinthine mini-town, a stark contrast to the rest of L’Eixample with its large cornerless city block structure. Within the residential areas I didn’t find very much in the way of art, though it seems the neighborhood was either getting ready for or cleaning up after their summer festival.
As I hit the fringes of the small, squat homes, I found a series of gardens where old factories once stood, only a few crumbling walls remained. It was on these walls where I found some fantastic, colorful images, some partially eaten away or covered. The image presented here was found on a small side street near some factories which have been converted into offices or design studios. I look forward to taking more time to see what else lies hidden in this delicious example of urban decay.